Having an open communication channel is essential to any entity whether a business or an individual. Landlines and mobiles telephones provide communication channels for voice communications, while data networks (e.g., broadband networks, wireless data networks, etc.) provide communication channels for text message, email, instant messages, and other forms of electronic communication. Businesses rely on these open communication channels in order to interact with their customers, suppliers, and manufacturers. Individuals rely on these open communication channels for socializing and business.
However, an open communication channel can be and often is abused by spammers. As defined herein, a spammer is one who contacts an entity using an open communication channel to that entity for the purpose of promoting a good or service, conveying information, or obtaining information about the contacted entity. A spammer can include an advertiser, salesperson, telemarketer or online marketer, perpetrator of fraud, and promoter as some examples.
Various attempts have been made to keep communication channels open, but restrict the ability of spammers to abuse these channels of communication. Some attempts to address this and related issues have brought about caller-id, personalized calling profiles, and “do not contact” lists for telephone communications and spam filters for electronic communications such as email. Yet, each of these attempts has shortcomings that limit its effectiveness in truly preventing spam.
Caller-id is a service that provides a simple identification string in order to identify the contacting entity or the entity initiating the communication. The identification string can be a telephone number or a name. Caller-id is useful in combating spam when the contacted entity is able to identify spammers solely based on the identification string. In most cases, however, the contacted entity will be unfamiliar with the caller-id provided name or number and therefore have no idea whether the contacting entity is a spammer or not. The contacted entity may simply not answer any contact from an unrecognized caller-id name or number. This not an ideal manner with which to combat spam, especially when some percentage of the missed contacts is not spam. A further shortcoming is that caller-id does not prevent a spammer from continually reaching out to a contacted entity.
To avoid this latter issue, some services allow an entity to configure a personalized calling profile that is then used to restrict who can contact the entity. The personalized calling profile includes a black-list of telephone numbers or caller-ids of those spammers that the entity does not want to be contacted by. Like the caller-id solution, the personalized calling profile solution requires the entity to identify spammers before being able to black-list them. Although, once a spammer is entered to the black-list, the solution can prevent all future contacts from the spammer without further effort by the entity. This is a reactive solution to spam rather than a proactive solution. Worse yet, this solution imposes a significant configuration burden on each contacted entity. The contacted entity continually updates the black-list to add and remove spammers therefrom. In other words, the personalized calling profile solution does not provide an out-of-the-box solution to combat spam.
Whereas the personalized calling profile is under-inclusive in restricting contact from spammers, “do not contact” lists can be over-inclusive. Once an entity places his contact information on a “do not contact” list, entities that are not necessarily spammers could be prevented from contacting the entity. This solution does not allow the entity to control who is considered a spammer and who is not. The entity also cannot enforce the “do not contact” list. A spammer that circumvents or decides not to adhere to the “do not contact” list will be able to continually contact the entity until the entity contacts some regulatory body to report the abuse and the regulatory body takes action.
For electronic communications, spam filters have been effective in thwarting large scale spamming campaigns, but are less effective in thwarting smaller scale spamming campaigns such as an individual email from an advertiser to a targeted entity. Spam filters black-list known sources of spam. So long as a spammer does not create too large of a spam footprint (e.g., send the same email to hundreds of different recipients), the spam filter will not restrict that spammer's ability to contact others. Spam filters also look for certain content in the communication to identify the communication as spam. Here again, so long as the spammer does not include prohibited content, the spam filter will not restrict that spammer's ability to contact others. As such, spam filters are only effective against the worst violators and only decrease the flow of spam.
Accordingly, there is a need for more intelligent communication screening. Specifically, there is a need for a communication screening solution that does not rely on the entity's own knowledge in differentiating between spammers and non-spammers, but one that identifies spammers for the entity automatically and does so in a proactive manner. There is further a need to enable the entity to then decide whether or not to be contacted by the party attempting to establish contact.